GNOME 3 Shell vs Ubuntu Unity

The popular Linux distribution Ubuntu recently finalized its move to the new Unity interface, while other Linux distributions are moving to the new GNOME 3 shell. Both interfaces are remarkably different than the Linux environments you’re used to, but remarkably similar to one another. So which one is better for you? We delve down and uncover the differences between each.

Both Unity and the GNOME Shell—the default interface of GNOME 3—bring sweeping changes to the desktop, like big, icon-based app launchers, application docks, and other window management features designed for tablets and desktops alike. Unity is Ubuntu-specific, and Ubuntu 11.10 has removed the built-in option allowing you to easily switch to the classic GNOME desktop. Other Linux distributions, like Fedora, have upgraded to the new GNOME 3 Shell instead of GNOME 2. Today, we’ll look at the differences between these two new desktop environments, and help you decide which one is more likely to suit your particular needs. For an even comparison, we’ll be talking about them both from an Ubuntu standpoint, since that’s what the vast majority of Linux users have.

If you want to install the GNOME Shell on Ubuntu, just head into the Ubuntu Software Center and search for GNOME Shell. Install it, then log out of your system—you should see a small gear icon on the login screen, which you can then use to boot into the GNOME Shell instead of Unity.

Main Features

Both environments are remarkably similar, but with a few minor differences and features that make then each unique. The GNOME Shell is a bit more minimalistic and adventurous, while Unity keeps a few aspects of the traditional desktop around. Here’s how they break down.

Unity Has a Mac-Like Menu Bar, Dock, and a Feature-Filled App Launcher

The Desktop: Unity’s desktop is fairly similar to GNOME Classic’s, except for the large dock on the left side of the screen that replaces the old taskbar. You can still place icons on the desktop, and you can open multiple windows as usual. The title bar is now one unified menu for all your apps, like on Mac OS X: instead of having File, Edit, and other menus within each app’s window, you’ll now see them in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Each window has a close, maximize, and minimize button, and when you maximize a window, those buttons also appear on the unified menu bar. Unity has two versions: one for low-powered machines, and one designed for regular desktops that has some enhanced graphical effects (like a transparent dock). Even on a powerful machine, though, Unity can be a bit slow at times, which can bring down the overall experience.

The Dock: Unity’s dock comes with a number of apps already pinned, but you can pin any app by opening it up by right-clicking on its icon and hitting “Add to Favorites”. If the dock has more icons than your screen can fit, it will become scrollable—just mouse down to the bottom and it’ll automatically scroll down the list so you can access other apps. If you have multiple windows open in one app, you’ll see two arrows next to that app’s icon, which is nice, and clicking on it gives you an Exposé-like overview of that app’s windows.

Unity’s dock is sadly not movable from its left-hand position, which is very annoying (Isn’t Linux is supposed to be super customizable?). However, despite this annoyance, it does have some nice Ubuntu integration that you don’t get in the GNOME Shell—for example, you can right-click on Thunderbird’s dock icon to compose a new message or browse your address book.

The Dash: You can access Unity’s application launcher—called the Dash—by hitting the Windows key on your keyboard or by hitting the Dash icon at the top of Unity’s dock. The Dash is a panel that replaces the drop-down menus of classic GNOME. From it, you can search through all your installed apps, settings, files, or even music from one location. You don’t need to click on the search box either—just open up the Dash and start typing. It’ll even show you apps that you don’t have installed, but that you can download from the Ubuntu Software Center, which is convenient. By default, the Dash searches through your apps, though you can hit the icons across the bottom of the Dash to search through files or music through their own “lenses”. This is a pretty nice feature, and it makes the Dash pretty versatile.

It isn’t without its annoyances, though. If you manually navigate through your list of apps in the Dash, it’ll only show one line of apps in any given category. You have to hit a “More Apps” button to see the full list, which is obnoxious and unnecessary. By default, the Dash only takes up about a fourth of the screen, but you can maximize it to take up the entire screen if you wish—but it still only shows a few apps at a time, wasting all that space and making you click around more. It seems like it takes a million clicks to navigate anywhere in the Dash, so while it makes a fine application launcher, it’s far less adequate as a replacement for the old drop-down menus.

Workspaces: Unity’s workspaces work much like GNOME Classic’s. You hit the Worksace button in the dock, and you see four desktops layed out in a grid (though you can edit this number to be whatever you wish). Double click on one, and it’ll take you to that desktop, where you can open up more windows and better organize your screen real estate. None of this is very new, but Unity makes it a bit more prominent than older versions of GNOME did.

The GNOME 3 Shell Has a Minimalist Desktop, an Organized App Launcher, and a Few Extra Features

The Desktop: When you first boot into the GNOME 3 Shell, you might be a bit thrown off at how minimalist it is. Your desktop is completely blank, with just a sparse menu bar at the top of the screen—you don’t even have a dock on your desktop. Not only that, but you can’t put files on your desktop by default, and the windows don’t even have minimize or maximize buttons. That said, these are pretty easy things to get over—after all, you can still maximize and minimize the windows using keyboard shortcuts or a double-click on the title bar. It also adds a few new window management features, like the ability to snap them to the edges of the screen, similar to Windows 7’s Aero Snap feature—perfect if you need to work with two apps side by side. Like Unity, it has some nice desktop effects—mainly lots of smooth transitions and fade-outs—but it performs a good deal faster than Unity, making it more pleasant to use (not to mention very slick).

The Activities Panel: When you hit the Activities button, in the upper right-hand corner of the screen (or hit the Windows button on your keyboard), you’ll enter the Activities panel. Similar to Unity’s Dash, the Activities panel lets you search through all your apps for quick launching, as well as see an Exposé-like overview of all your windows. You can search for apps just by opening Activities and typing, but if you want to manually look through them, you have to click the “Applications” button first. It’s annoying, but the Applications menu itself is much less annoying than Unity’s Dash overall, and requires far less clicking to navigate. The categories menu on the right is also very simply laid out, which is nice.

While the GNOME Shell’s Activities panel is less annoying than Unity’s Dash, it isn’t quite as feature-filled. Unity’s lenses for searching files and music are great, and the integration with the Ubuntu Software Center is awesome. Since th GNOME Shell wasn’t built for Ubuntu, you don’t get any of that.

The Dock: Instead of being on your desktop, like a traditional dock, the GNOME Shell’s dock is part of the Activities panel, showing up on the left side of the screen whenever you open the panel up. The dock is one area in which Unity really wins: GNOME’s dock just seems half-assed. Not only is it annoyingly hidden away, but adding more icons shrinks it down, à la Mac OS X, as opposed to making it scrollable like Unity’s. This doesn’t seem like a problem at first, but it gets a lot harder to use if it shrinks down far, and it starts shrinking down long before it fills the entire side of the screen, which is really stupid. It also won’t tell you if you have multiple windows open in one app, nor will it give you a preview of that app’s windows—you can only see a preview of all currently open windows. And, once again, you lose out on the cool Ubuntu integration features, like the ability to compose a new Thunderbird message by right-clicking its dock icon.

Workspaces: The GNOME Shell handles workspaces a bit differently than Unity. Instead of having a predetermined set of desktops, you can open the Activities window and drag any of your windows to the right to add them to a new workspace. You start off with only two workspaces, but can add more and more as you need them, which is a much smarter way of handling the whole process.

Notifications: One of GNOME Shell’s very cool new features is the notifications system. Notifications pop up at the bottom of your screen without being very intrusive, and any that you don’t see are accessible from the Activities panel (or by activating the bottom right-hand screen corner with your mouse). Any notifications you haven’t seen will be there waiting for you when you come back, which is great for applications like instant messaging.

The Upsides and Downsides of Both

While each environment has its own little differences, the two are largely similar, both in pros and cons. Both interfaces are a bit more pixel-friendly than GNOME 2, especially the GNOME 3 Shell (as long as you don’t mind the hidden dock). GNOME’s minimalism also gives it a really clean look, as does its lack of desktop icons—you don’t have anything cluttering up your screen but the windows you open. And, with both heavily promoting virtual workspaces and this Exposé-like window overview, you can more easily focus on one program at a time, which is good for those of us easily distracted.

Both have migrated away from the drop-down menu to an icon-based launcher, which almost looks tablet-like—even when they’re not being used on tablets. This is definitely a downside during daily use, as you have to move your mouse all over the screen just to click on the apps or settings you want to launch. The ability to hit a key and start typing an app’s name is great, though, and something I highly recommend you work into your muscle memory—if you haven’t already with something like GNOME-Do—but still, on the occasions you need to manually sift through apps, the launchers seem out of place and much harder to navigate. For what it’s worth, though, I found GNOME Shell’s far less annoying. If you learn your keyboard shortcuts, you’ll probably care about all this a lot less, as the keyboard can take you everywhere pretty quickly.

Customizability has also taken an enormous hit with both environments. Back in GNOME 2, you could tweak the layout of the taskbar, install one of many different desktop themes, and customize your drop-down menus at will. Most of this is completely gone in GNOME Shell and Unity, meaning you’re a bit more forced into using the environment as its creators envisoned, and less how you envision. This is, sadly, one of the things that made Linux so great, and it’s sad to see it going down the tubes. That said, customizability could increase with time, especially after third party developers have more time to create tweaks, but right now, you lose a lot.

Gnome 3 comes with a lot of extensions already and gnome tweaks tool. Gnome tweaks tool will allow you to add back icons to desktop and min/max/close icons on the right hand side (in case you wanted something more familiar). A number of useful extensions allow you add back in shutdown/reboot options and you can even bring back the dropdown menu. I’ve found Gnome 3 much much easier to tab between apps, Unity seems difficult with lots of apps open. Some of the Unity widgets stuff looks nice, but I’d rather have better work flow.

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